Excerpt:U.S. officials have finally admitted what has
long been obvious: that Bush's "global war on terror" has been an expensive failure, costing hundreds of billions
of dollars and claiming possibly hundreds of thousands of lives, but making the world no safer and quite likely
more dangerous.

Bush's top counterterrorism advisers acknowledged
as much on July 17 in releasing a summary of a National Intelligence Estimate that represented the consensus
view of the U.S. intelligence community.

Bush's warnings that we must fight them in Iraq
so "we don't have to fight them here" or so "they won't followus home" turn out to be the opposite of the truth:
because U.S. forces are occupying Iraq, al-Qaeda has moreresources and more recruits determined to bring
the war to the United States.

"The idea that the White House can lay out
a scorecard for progress in Iraq after the death, destruction and regional turmoil it has unleashed
is politically incredible, intellectually offensive and morally deficient. Blaming Iraqis
for being unable to handle the consequences of a brutal, disfiguring attack makes Bush the bizarre
purveyor of a terrible combination of moral callousness and foreign policy criminality."
--Rami Khouri, "Blame
Iraq for Bush Mistakes"

Excerpt:In conversations with these College Republicans
about in Iraq, I listened as they lip-synched discredited cant about"fighting them over there so we don't have to
fight them over here." Many of the young GOP cadres I met describedthe so-called "war on terror" as nothing less
than the cause of their time.

Yet when I asked them why they were not participating
in this historical cause, they went into contortions.Asthma. Bad knees. "Medical reasons." "It's not
for me." Like the current Chickenhawks, the GOP's next generationwould rather cheerlead from the sidelines while
less privileged young men and women fight and die.

Duncan, 74, co-founder and chairman of Enterprise
Products Partners, a big pipeline company,appeared before the panel on Wednesday to answer
questions about a helicopter hunting triphe and others took with Russian guides five years
ago.

Duncan told the Houston Chronicle he shot and
killed a moose and a sheep from a helicopter,a practice he did not know was illegal in
Russia.

Who knew it was wrong to hover over defenseless animals in a helicopter
and slaughter them by using the most expensive guns a rich Republican
can afford?

Next thing you know, they say it's wrong to hunt drugged bears and lions
in Texas cages.

The
Wikipedia entry for Mitt's dad (and former Governor of Michigan)
says that Mitt's great grandparentswere such committed polygamist Mormons that they
fled the United States for Mexico because the federalgovernment was hunting down polygamists.
Mitt's dad was born in Mexico because of polygamist persecution.And Mitt is descended from one of the original
Mormon "apostles" and his Dad served as a Mormon "patriarch"until his death. To suggest that Mitt is
a Mormon "convert" is just a little ridiculous.

It also produced one of the most terrifying sentences
ever buried in a newspaper. As reported deep in The New York Whore Times, the Tokyo Electric
Company admitted that "the force of the shaking caused by the earthquake had exceeded the design limits
of the reactors, suggesting that the plant's builders had underestimated the strength of possible earthquakes
in the region."

There are 55 reactors in Japan. Virtually all
of them are on or near major earthquake faults.

There are four active reactors in California on
or near major earthquake faults,

"Osama's plan was to get Bush to overreact
and overreach. With the invasion of Iraq, Bush fell slap-bang into that trap. Our latest
National Intelligence Estimate suggests that Al Qaeda in Iraq is now among our most significant threats.
As far as the eye can see, the likely consequences of Iraq range from the bad to the catastrophic. I
cannot recall a more avoidable man-made disaster." --Timothy Garton Ash, Link

What about Katrina?Bush is the only president who played with himself
while an entire city drowned.

Excerpt:For almost 2 years, FEMA has suppressed warnings
from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided
trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers,
congressional lawmakers said yesterday.

A trail of e-mails obtained by investigators shows
that the agency's lawyers rejected a proposal for systematic testing of the levels of potentially cancer-causing
formaldehyde gas in the trailers, out of concern that the agency would be legally liable for any hazards or health
problems. As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers,
and hundreds have complained of ill effects."

"The reaction I hear from every woman I know,
those who have gotten sick over seeing middle-agedmen cavorting with girls barely beyond their
teen years, is a giant "yuck." What does it say about a man that he'd rather be with someone who wasn't
even alive when JFK was shot? What does it say that he doesn't care that she doesn't remember the
songs and the history and the fears we grew up with? Where does it leave those of us who do? Dateless
is where."--
FOX News favorite Susan Estrich, lying to herself about why she can't get
a date Link

Note: Estrich is the genius who put Dukakis in the tank for the
famous photo-op.

Excerpt:The misbegotten Iraq war has diverted attention
from those objectives. It has boosted al-Qaeda's standing and recruitment. Though no meaningful
link existed before between Iraq and al-Qaeda -- and Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with
9/11 -- one has now been created. Worse yet, the Iraq war has split the nation and shattered
the post-9/11 sense of shared purpose...

The prudent response is to treat the findings
as a sobering springboard back to the clarity of purpose just after 9/11, when the nation understood where
the threat came from and united behind Bush's vow to track bin Laden and his followers to the ends
of the earth.

"I swear I'll
hunt down Osama right after
I steal all the oil in Iraq!"

This story depends on how the campaign merchandise
(stickers, t-shirts, mugs, etc) is counted.Obama has not been "caught" at anything.

I disagree, but let's move on.

"UPDATE #2: Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer emailed reporters
today denying that there's any "trick" involved intaking in small donations for merchandise, and
adding: 'Campaigns that don't expect to have this level ofinterest among small donors tend to outsource
their campaign material sales to vendors. For example, theClinton campaign has contracted with Financial
Innovations to sell their paraphernalia. Financial Innovationsmakes all of the profit from those sales and
takes the loss if no one buys the materials. To our knowledge,the Obama Campaign, because of the tremendous
grassroots enthusiasm, is the only campaign to feel theycould generate sufficient interest in T-shirts
and other materials to not contract with an outside vendor.'"

She who cannot be named doesn't count these sales
as donors since they're not technically selling the items.Obama does count them as donations because his
campaign is directly selling these types of items.More on how other campaigns have counted at the
mydd link Mark, long-time reader

Mark, with all respect, we're talking about different things.
Hillary and Obama can sell anything they want to anyone who'll buy
it - I don't care.
But Obama did get caught.

His campaign and the media made a BIG DEAL out of the super-diverse
donor groundwork he had.
How people, the little people, the salt of the Earth, kept turning
out for the Obama revolution.
He's a man of the people - 250,000 donors proves Obama is another JFK,
or RFK.

But ...it turns out he counted everybody who bought something and since
I know human nature,
I have a feeling those stickers and pictures were "value priced," so
everyone
spent a buck.

I like Obama, he could win and he could be the best president since
FDR,

...and I'd love that.

...but he did get caught.

He made a rookie mistake with that whole "I'm
above all that" business - and now he's stuck.
When you're 20 points behind, you have to run attack ads, but he promised
he'd never do that.

"It's the Democrats who went on record as wanting
to lose the war. They don't realize how they are viewed. They think
this makes Republicans look bad because they're living with this myth that most Americans
agree with them on this, which is not the case."
-- Rush the junkie, claiming America loves Bush and his bloody quagmire

BC, the two Democratic front runner Presidential
candidates are current members of the Senate. They want to lead the country. Shouldn't
they start by showing some leadership qualities right now by calling for impeachment as some others, who
are not running and have a real spine, are?

A majority of Americans, according to recent polls,
want both Bush and Cheney impeached. But not a word from those two cowards. Helen

Helen, one of those 'cowards' is going to be president.Becoming the leader of the inpeachment movement
could change that fact.

"Telling the truth about Iraq reinforces the
suspicion that we will abandon our allies in Iraq, much as we did in Vietnam, Lebanon
and Somalia...such talk understandably unnerves the Iraqi allies we are asking to assume
enormous personal risks." --
Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman, trying to intimidate Hillary,Link

Excerpt:I, George Bush, due to the unusual threat to
national security posed by acts of violence threatening thestability of Iraq declare that it is in the interests
of the United States to take additional steps. I hereby order:

All property of the following persons are blocked
and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn,or otherwise dealt in: any person determined
by the government(the King
and his co-conspirators) to havecommitted, or to pose a significant riskof
committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose oreffect of threatening the stability of Iraq or
undermining efforts to promote reconstruction and assist the Iraqi people;

I took out a few hundred legal words, but basically
that reads:"If you try to block anything I'm doing in
Iraq, I can seize your property."

Worse, it says, "Anyone who poses a risk
of threatening the stability of Bush's Iraq."

So, any American who they suspect
might try to block their crimes in Iraq can lose evrything.

Excerpt:I, Marc Perkel, the founder of the Church of
Reality is now listed on the American TSA list as a terrorist suspect.The TSA (US Transportation Security Administration)
maintains a "selectee list" which lists people who are flaggedfor heightened security screening. This list,
which has not caught a single real terrorist, is used mostly as a politicalenemies list against activists who are speaking
out against government abuses of power.

"In some ways this is a badge of honor", states
Marc Perkel, First One of the Church of Reality. In this environmentof repression of non-Christian religions in America,
if you aren't on the TSA list you aren't getting your message out.I consider it to be an acknowledgement that I'm
doing my job."

Marc is not on the no fly list.This is just a harassment list that the US government
keeps to intimidate activists.

As a result, the United States of America is now
on the Church of Reality list of nations who are hostile toRealism and Realists and the US is a nation that
is moving towards oppressing religious freedom.

You and I know damn well what happens: the Administration
attacks their opponents ruthlessly. They smear, they lie. Yesterday they went after
Sen. Clinton. I stepped up to defend her. Tomorrow who knows which Democrat they'll attack.

Here's what I'm asking you: I don't care if you
have a horse in 2008, or who you're supporting. Anytime you see a Democrat get attacked, please
step up and defend them. John Kerry

John, too bad you learned that lesson after losing
to the most crooked moron in history.

Excerpt:Nothing unites Republicans more than their bellicose
barking about war and confrontation. Their debates often sound like a tough-man competition, with Rudy
denouncing the "cut-and-run" Democrats, Romney demanding a double-size Gitmo, and the rest of the pack
struggling to keep pace with the snarling alpha dogs.

Yet none of these martial orators has seen a day
of military service -- except for McCain, whose prospects are rapidly deflating, and Duncan Hunter, whose campaign
never got enough air for a single balloon. Unfortunately for those two decorated veterans, their party
seems to prefer its hawks to be of the chicken variety.

What happened to Marty's Bartcop E!?After being "updated daily" for "1056 days
in a row"...it stopped after Tuesday, 17 July 2007.I MISS IT! Corbett

Marty is in Pennsylvania attending her father-produced
50th Family Reunion.After all these years on dial-up, she was soooo
looking forward to DSL.(They don't offer high-speed where she lives
in Los Angeles, isn't that crazy?)

Even if they falsely claim that Clinton sent our troops into Somalia,It's as easy as looking at the numbers...

Clinton inherits Bush's Somalia disaster
18
brave men lost

Bush 41 offers Kuwait to Saddam
143
brave men lost

Reagan orders troops housed on land in Lebanon
220
brave men lost.

Bush the dumber lies to start his fake oil war
206
brave men lost and climbing higher every day..

That's why they keep reminding you of Somalia, almost every day.They don't want you to know the facts - they need all eyes
on Clinton's zipperto get away with the biggest robbery in history - the US Treasury
and Iraq's oil.

Where are the Democrats?

Four years later, 3620 dead soldiers later, I'm still asking - where
are the Democrats?

Excerpt:Rev. Coy Privette, the president of the Christian
Action League, a North Carolina ultraconservative Christian political organization based in Raleigh,
has been arrested for soliciting prostitution:

....

Privette, 74, was charged with six counts of misdemeanor
aiding and abetting prostitution by renting a hotel room and paying for sexual acts. Police
were investigating a forged check case, which led them to the prostitution charges. Privette paid the
prostitute with checks he then reported as stolen, officials said.

Privette and his wife have four children.

The conservatives who scream "family values" the loudest are the most
perverted.

I about had a fit last night, Bart. I didn't know
my subscription was running outand had been 'saving' BCR
Show 121. I've discovered
that a Bartcop Radio showis just the ticket for making the time fly when
I have some onerous housekeeping task to do.

So last night, it was cleaning out the fridge.
I was actually looking forward to this jobas I dragged the laptop into the kitchen and
... tried to log in. Again. And again. And again.

OK, fair enough. Time to send Bart some $$$. So
I went to PayPal and did the deed, thinking thatsomehow through the miracle of the intertubes,
I'd be let back into the wonderful world of Bart.But nooooooooooo.

Well, I had to clean that fridge because my mother-in-law
is coming and I can't have her seeingany penicillen projects in there, so I tuned
into Air America and suffered through an hour of the mostboring radio on the planet. The commercials are
more interesting than the program at night. Not fun.

You'll notice that I'm on the automatic monthly
renewal to avoid a repeat. -Joanne

Joanne, thanks for that, and sorry about that
delay.If we had Kos money, we could afford fancy programs
that could renew you automatically.But we don't so all I can do is check the e-mail
and sign you up as soon as I can.

Excerpt:Proving once again that the Emmys are an outdated
institution on the edge of irrelevance, the nominations came out today, and outside from
a few pleasant surprises, it's more of the same- the same shows being rewarded, the same shows
being snubbed, etc.

"Veronica Mars," in the estimation of many television
critics including myself, was one of the best shows on television during its three year run, and
has exactly zero nominations during that time to show for it."Battlestar Galactica" is another show destined
to be ignored by the Emmys. It's more of the same from the people who nominated David Hyde Pierce (a
good actor, but come on) ten staggering years in a row.

What about Rescue Me? What
about Dexter? Or The Wire?I'm surprised Will and Grace wasn't
nominated - again.

The Sopranos had a bad year, yet they cleaned up on nominations.
When they were at their best, the Emmys went to The West Wingwhen they had a bad year. Why can't they get anything right?

Excerpt:It took an unlikely straight on the final card
of the 205th hand, but Jerry Yang beat Tuan Lamto win the 2007 World Series of Poker's $8M first
prize and his first WSOP bracelet.Lam, who avoided elimination several times, finished
second for $4,840,981.

At 3:48 a.m. local time, the crowd burst into
cheers while friends mobbed Yang.

Yang described himself as a "true rookie" coming
to his first World Series.He is a psychologist and has played poker for
only two years.

I watched the first 13 hours, then got drowsy.I set the TIVO but, as always, it shut off early.

Since it was live, they didn't show the hole cards,
so the entertainment value was lowered.It was produced by idiots who couldn't even tell
us what the hole cards were even after they'd been turned up.Sometimes it took a full minute for us to learn
what the palyers' cards were.Worse, since it was the biggest game of their lives, they often stared
into space
for 5-10 minutes trying to make up their minds to raise, call or fold.

There were some hysterical moments that should make it into BCR
122.
The eventual winner has a personal relationship wih Jesus Christ.
Each time he was in a big pot, he'd remind Jesus what a swell dude
he was.
"Jesus, love you long time, and I could really
use a King or a Queen."

Lee Watkinson was the only one of the nine finalists I'd ever heard
of.
Poker's gotten so big, our favorite players can't make it to the TV
events.

It was the only TV poker game in years where I wasn't left wanting more.

Excerpt:Bush is convinced, in the face of all evidence
to the contrary, that he is on the right coursein the war in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism.
He says he will not change his mind.

Thus, we are at an historic moment; and we would
be well advised to see what light historians might shed on our current predicament in Iraq
and the basic (but unanswered) question as to why so many people resort to terrorism against
us.

Historian Tuchman wrote: "Wooden-headedness...plays
a remarkably large role in government.It consists in assessing a situation in terms
of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring or rejecting any contrary signs. It is acting according to
wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts."

About Bush, Tuchman might've said:"No experience of the failure of his policy could
shake his belief in its essential excellence."

Excerpt:We have accomplished so much! Our membership
has grown to over 600,000 members.We are well on our way to our One Million Member
target.Encouraging your family, friends and tablemates
to join the PPA.

We lobby on Capitol Hill and in state capitols
to defend poker, but we need your help.Poker is not a crime!

Our motto for
this year is - "No Anti-Bush Site Left Behind".
So - if you have an anti-bush site and you are choking on hosting
fees or dealing with threats - let us know and we'll help keep you online.

We also
have that strongest server side spam filtering on the planet.Check out Marx
Mail for info on how you can have a Spam
Free Email Account.

Absolute
Garbage - Garbage
( Buy DVD) Four albums and seven GrammyÂ® nominations
later,Garbage has its first best of DVD collection
- Absolute Garbage. Among the 15 Garbage music videoson DVD for the first time. Plus unreleased in
the U.S.: You Look So Fine and Shut Your Mouth.

Also included is almost an hour of never-before-seen
footage backstage and behind-the-scenes,live performances and interviews, spanning the
band s entire career. Absolute Garbage offers the best ofa band that, to quote a lyric from Queer,
has been the strangest of the strange, the coolest of the cool.